I Can’t Complain One Bit.

Chicagoland got about five inches of rain overnight Wednesday night.  Before I went to bed, I was putting laundry in the dryer and saw a bit of seepage in one corner and didn’t think much of it.

Many moons ago I had a job that required me to be at work at 7:00 a.m.  Tony ended up building me a closet in the basement so I could get dressed with lights on and not disturb him while he was sleeping.  I have a long pole that has all of my hanging stuff, then a dresser and some plastic shelving for all my workout clothes, pants etc.

So I went downstairs to get ready for work, when I hit the basement floor and water was up past the middle of my leg!  Freezing cold water!  I turned the light on, and sure enough, we had between 6-8 inches of standing water throughout our whole basement.

You can’t tell it in this picture, but the water is just below my rain boots.

The only good thing is that our basement floor is cement, and the walls are cinder block.  Still I lost some Christmas stuff, and more than half my clothes are soaking wet.  And I can’t open the bottom three drawers of my dresser because they are swelled shut.   And it’s only water, no sewage!

I have to give Tony props though.  He always jokes and calls himself the maintenance man, but it’s true he is one of the handiest people I know.  He quickly got one sump pump working again, and fixed another pump, so that within a couple hours, all the waiter was pumped out of the basement.

I can’t complain though.  With all the shit that’s going on in the world, one Boston Marathon suspect shot and killed, the explosion in Texas.  Thousands of people are still without power in Chicagoland – three expressways were even completely closed!

I took today off to shop vac the remaining water, throw out stuff that isn’t salvageable, and do lots of laundry! 

I was in such a rush yesterday morning that I only had time to put together stuff for breakfast – an egg white sammie with cuties on the side.

I had to pick up some kitchen stuff for our office so me and my co-worker went to Mariano’s to pick up lunch too.  I had stuff to make a sandwich back at the office, but I wanted some soup on the side.  My camera battery was dead, so my iPhone stepped in.  The roast beef sandwich was fine, but the soup?  SO SALTY!  I ate like four bites and had to throw the rest away.

We call our backyard Lake Bizzy!  This is what it looked like yesterday morning:

When I got home from work yesterday, we saw that our neighbors across the channel have sandbagged their back door – what you can’t see is the about 15 feet of back yard that is completely flooded.

It’s been windy and we lost another branch from one of our trees:

I ended up making burgers for a quick dinner last night.  I remembered that I had bought blue cheese the week before and didn’t use any of it yet.  I puffy heart blue cheese, but can say that I don’t think I ever even tried it before meeting Tony!

And in case inquiring minds want to know, that’s hot sauce all over my baked fries.

Since I was late getting to work yesterday because of the basement, I didn’t work out.  I have a feeling I’ll have plenty of exercise cleaning today though!

So I am thankful for my handy and loving husband, the health to clean up the basement, and blue cheese. 

What are you thankful for today? 

I’ll be posting my homemade pasta recipe tomorrow – hope you give it a try! Make it a great day!